Ok, now that I'm back at school and thus playing online I see your guy's online problems. I also have had problems with the Fart-Clan server.

Now to the sound problem: Try lowering the sound quality in Windows. Under Advanced Audio Properties, lower the Hardware acceleration. It doesn't always help my sound problems, but it lessens them (and the sound quality too )

Oh, the graphics are definately important. I mean that in single player mode I can play with the settings cranked all the way up and have no problems. But online it's a different story. I have to sacrifice quality to get response time, but even at lower settings, the graphics are sufficiant for those purposes.